The Burden
by Kare Nobody
Summary: We all know Sarah and her story. Does "Lady of the Labyrinth" ring any bells for you? Well her story is now over but she left a burden for her daughter Kare. Can Kare save everyone as she relives her mother's past and do what she failed to do? R


Chapter One

Sarah, she was once a fifteen-year-old girl, she was once a wife, but most importantly she was once a mother. Now? Sarah Williams Hunter was dead. Three years ago Sarah left her home early in the morning to head out to her shoot. The paparazzi tracked her down and beset her down 5th Avenue. By the time she reached the curve around the lake they drove her off the side and sent her to her watery grave. Sarah's story made it to the twelve o'clock news that hot summer's afternoon. Her daughter, Kare, was pulled out of literature class. The story that they told her shattered her world of pure happiness; from there on her life got worse. How could this have happened to her? She was only twelve.

Later on that year her father, a famous director, had started dating. He had met a woman named Karen. Kare hated her and she hated her father for she thought this was all way too soon. By the time of her thirteenth birthday her father proposed to Karen. A little bit later they got married. The following year after, the year of her fourteenth birthday, Karen turned wicked and cruel and started to abuse Kare. Her father was about to catch drift but by Kare's fifteenth birthday Karen bore her father a son. They named him Todd. The only thing her parents saw her as now was a slave and a very, very cheap babysitter.

It was a thick muggy afternoon. The sky was clear but one could smell the scent of rain on the tip of the breeze. Kare was up in the attic that Karen and her father had forbidden her to enter. It was rather dusty and she could smell the years of aging as she inhaled deeply.

Todd was down for his nap and her parents wouldn't be home for another thirty minutes. Kare crept over to a box labeled Sarah's Things. She gingerly picked up the dusty flaps of the cardboard box. The first thing her eyes went to was Sir Lancelot, the teddy bear, which used to be her mother's and then later hers. She picked him up and wrapped her arms around him and burying her face in the soft, fuzzy fabric of the bear she let out a sob. She inhaled deeply, smelling memories from her childhood and ones from her mother.

She set Sir Lancelot back in the box and then randomly shot down to the bottom of the box. Her hand touched something vaguely familiar to her. She grasped it and pulled it out of the box. In her hand was a red leather bound book with pretty gold letters that spelled out the title, The Labyrinth.

Where had she heard this title before? Her thoughts were interrupted though as a car door slammed.

Kare's heart raced as she jolted down the staircase. As she descended the stairs she tucked the book in her pants and made sure her baggy cleaning shirt didn't show the outline of it. She sprinted into Todd's room and picked up the Grimm Fairytales book and turned to a random page. She calmed her voice and started to read aloud. She heard the door open.

"Todd darling we're home!" Karen's shrill, horrid voice echoed.

"He's in the nursery. Try not to wake him." Kare said crossing her arms as she leaned against the doorframe.

"Of course he is. You wouldn't be doing your job right if he wasn't in there right now, now would you!" Karen snapped.

Kare rolled her eyes and turned to her father. "How was the brunch?"

"Oh that. Yes it was quite jolly. We were offered to go to that new restaurant with the Johnson's. We'll need you to watch Todd tonight Kerry." Her father coughed.

Kare's eyes widen at this strange name. "Its Kare daddy."

"Quite right. Just checking that you still knew." He said looking down nervously.

"Now we'll be leaving at seven. If you've finished all your chores you can go do whatever you want." Karen said looking at her reflection in the hallway mirror. Fluffing her bleach blonde hair.

"Yes I have. Can I go to the park?" Kare asked uncrossing her arms.

"Does it look like I care? Just stay out of my way." Karen said flatly, her father was long gone to go see he precious son.

"Fine." Kare said spinning sharply on her heel and headed upstairs to her bedroom.

"Don't forget to be back by seven!" Karen called after her.

Kare slammed her bedroom door and sunk down to the floor, throwing the book onto her bed on her way down. She folded her arms on her knees and buried her head in her arms. She sat there for a few minutes and then her stench from this morning house chores hit her. She decided to get up and take a shower. It was only two o' clock. By the time she got down showering it would be three and it was only a five-minute run to the park.

Kare opened the door in her room that led her into her own bathroom. She turned on the water and set it to warm. She stuck a hand in and when she was satisfied with the water's temperature she undressed herself and jumped into the shower. She lathered herself with wild honeysuckle body wash and then shampooed and conditioned her hair.

She got out on her fluffy purple bath rug and grabbed the towel off of the hook next to her. She wrapped it securely around her body and then stepped up to her bathroom vanity mirror. She wiped away the fog and stared at her reflection and then glanced at the laminated picture taped to her mirror. She was the spitting image of her mother.

She hand long dark brown hair but she had her father's soft brown eyes. Her face was thin but not too thin like Karen's. She had a tan complexion due to her outside chores and her frequent days in the nearby park. She was skinny but she wasn't skin and bones like most of the girls in her class. She had muscle about her. She held up her hands and looked at them; they were rough and callused.

She sighed and went into her room and walked into her closet and pulled out a pair of shorts and a pink bra and a white tank top. When she was fully dressed she glanced at the book on her bed and grabbed it and then headed out of the house.

She thundered down the staircase and went out the front door. She couldn't help but slam it a little. Outside, standing her front doorstep, Kare took a deep breath of fresh air. She loved smelling the hint of rain on a soft summer breeze. She pulled out her clipped on her Walkman and started to jog. She enjoyed the sun shining down on her as she past little girls playing hopscotch and boys skating playing street hockey. She past one group of way smaller girls having a tea party out on their front lawn.

When she was finally in the park she sat down underneath what was her mother's tree. The community dedicated the tree that her mother used to perfect her acting skills when she died in the car crash. They had a nice little plaque with a brief bio about her life. Next to it they had a picture of her when she was sixteen performing her first lead in her high school's play that they held at the park.

Kare sunk down onto the ground and opened the little red book. It took her just the first page and she was hooked like a fish. When she was done reading it the first time she read it again and again. She lost track of time until the park clock chimed seven. Kare's head snapped up from the book and she jumped up and started to sprint toward home. Roars of thunder close at her heel and after she had crossed the bridge the heavens poured rain down on her!

The streets were long now deserted as everybody was in a sheltering home. It was only Kare and the music that her footsteps and the rain made, in perfect harmony. She came up to her front porch and saw Karen there with her hands on her hips as she glared right into Kare's soul.

"It's not fair!" Kare yelled.

"Oh really? Well hurry inside before you make us even more late." Karen sneered as she smacked Kare's butt hard to make her go faster.

Kare entered the house to Todd's screaming and crying. Her father poked his head out of the nursery doorway and look disapproving at Kare. He walked out and put on his hat and raincoat. He took Karen's arm.

"We'll be back at midnight. Don't let anything happen to Todd, Kerry." Her father warned.

Kare fumed and seethed on the inside. "It's Kare! My name is Kare!" Kare yelled after them as the slammed the door shut.

Kare ran up to the attic and brought down the box of her mother's things and took it into her room. She started to unpack everything into her room and when the box was empty she placed on the main hallway table, in plain sight for them to see. Her head was spinning and she getting annoyed at Todd's screaming, so she stomped up the short flight of stairs and into his nursery, her eyes flashing with hurt and rage. A bright light of lightening lit up the room and then two seconds later followed the thunder. Todd only screamed louder.

"What do you want? Do you want a story? Fine. Once upon a time there was a girl that all ways had to stay home with the baby! The girl was practically a slave! Day and night she would work under the eyes of her evil and cruel stepmother! But what no one knew was that…that…that.." Kare said trying to keep it up. "That the Goblin King had fallen in love with this girl and had given her certain powers! So, when one day baby had been particularly cruel to her and she was hurt by the harsh words of her father and stepmother the girl called on the goblins for help! Say your right words, the goblins said and we'll take the baby away with us and keep him in the goblin city forever and ever, and then he'll become one of us! But the girl couldn't do it until that one night."

Her story wasn't helping Todd so she scooped him up and bounced him up and down in her arms.

"Stop it, stop it!" Kare yelled. "I'll say the magic words!" Kare said rising Todd high in the air.

"No. I mustn't say, oh I can bear it no longer! Goblin King! Goblin King! Wherever you may be! Came take this child of mine far away from me!" Kare said dropping him quickly into her arms.

She sighed and tucked him in knowing well enough he would just squirm his way out of the thin blanket. She walked away, toward the door, reaching for her side to turn on her Walkman. She turned off the lights as another streak of bright lightning lit up the room.

"I wish the goblins would take you away. Right now."


End file.
